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24/3/2006

RongRong & inri

Alexander Ochs Galleries, Berlin

The Third Space

After exhibitions at the ICP, New York and museum presentations in Chicago and Seattle as well as at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the exhibition 'Between Past and Future / New Photography and Video from China' will be opened at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin on March 23rd.

This exhibition includes some works of the artist RongRong, born in 1968, who took these photographs in the early 90ies in Beijing's artists' village 'East Village', a colony given up by the farmers and occupied by artists. 'The Third Space', a selection of these photographs, forms the introduction to the exhibition. The artist creates high quality prints on baryth paper, representing performances of meanwhile legendary reputation as well as some still lives reflecting the artists' completely isolated situation in the community and at the same time the enormous power and creativity of this scene at the old summer palace of Beijing.

In 2000 the Chinese RongRong met the Japanese inri. Since then, they have been living and working together. While Marina Abramovic and her partner Ulay separated on the Chinese Wall, RongRong & inri united just there. The exhibition 'The Third Space' presents the series RongRong & inri 'In the Great Wall' as well as the series 'In Bad Goysern, Austria' and 'In Helsinki, Finland'. In all these works the artists are naked and exposed to nature and its extremes (snow, ice and heat). They comment on the landscapes and initiate new image spheres with their bodies. In contrast to common fashion they don't alter the large-scale works digitally, RongRong & inri rather use the brush to colour the black-and-white copies in 'jarring' colours. Thus for instance the superficially beautiful aspect of the Austrian Alps is destroyed - the artists' comment on today's controversial discussion about 'beauty' in contemporary art.

RongRong & inri organized the installation of their series 'We are here' from 2002 in an old factory building in 798 - The Art Space in Dashanzi, which was to become Beijing's bohemian quarter. Here also their bodies were the focus of their discourse with space. While the first work of the series shows them between broken machines (equipment for the weapon industry) and Maoist revolutionary slogans, their bodies are only faintly recognizable in the diffuse mists of the sixth picture. This had been the perspective of Dashanzi five years before and thus the perspective of the artists working there.

RongRong's & inri's concept to create their own, autonomous space in life and in their artistic production - apart from the standardized Chinese society - is a recurrent subject in their work. It is the artists' third space.

Opening: March 25th, 2006, 7 - 9pm; The artists will be present.

Alexander Ochs Galleries
Sophienstr. 21 - Berlin
Hours: Tue-Fri 10am - 1pm + 2am - 6pm, Sat 11am - 6pm

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